There was frost on the Silverado's windshield Wednesday morning for the first time this fall, and it took me eight minutes with a credit card to scrape enough to see out. I could not find a single ice scraper in either vehicle. That's how the October list started.
Both of our vehicles are high mileage. The Sienna is around 194,500 and the truck is a little over 139,000. Neither one likes surprises in January, and neither do I. I'd rather spend a Saturday morning and about $100 in October than stand in a parking lot at 6 a.m. in the dark.
What we bought
Here's where the $118 went, all from a local parts store:
- New front wiper blades for both vehicles: $64
- A rear wiper blade for the van: $12
- Three gallons of winter washer fluid rated to 20 below: $9
- An antifreeze tester with the floating balls: $8
- Two ice scrapers with brushes: $13
- A dial tire gauge, because the stick one was lying to me: $12
The battery test was free. Most parts stores will test a battery in the vehicle with a handheld tester, and I recommend letting them.
Batteries
This was the result that mattered. The Silverado's battery tested good. The Sienna's tested weak: it was still starting the van fine, but the tester showed it delivering well below its rated cold cranking amps, and the employee said the words "replace soon." I looked up the date code on top. It was older than I thought.
I'm going to be honest about what we did, because it was a gamble. A new battery for the van runs around $160 to $170. It was starting fine, and I decided to watch it and get through the fall. If it starts cranking slowly, or if we get a real cold snap, it gets replaced that week. I made sure the jumper cables were in the van and showed Tina how to use them. I'll let you know how that works out.
Antifreeze, wipers and tires
The floating-ball tester takes a small sample of coolant and tells you roughly how cold it will protect against. Only do this with the engine fully cold. Never open a radiator cap or a pressurized coolant reservoir on a warm engine, because the coolant is under pressure and hot enough to burn you badly. I checked both first thing in the morning before either one had been started.
The Sienna uses Toyota's pink long-life coolant and the truck uses GM's orange coolant. They are not interchangeable and should not be mixed. Both tested protected to about 34 below, which is better than we need here. If one had come back weak, I'd have taken it to the shop for a coolant service, especially on the V8, which I'm not going to drain and bleed myself in our garage.
Wiper blades are the easiest thing on the list and the one people put off the longest. Ours were streaking in the rain and chattering across the glass. On both vehicles, the old blades come off by pressing a tab where the blade meets the arm and sliding it down off the hook. Put a towel on the windshield while you swap them, because if the bare arm snaps back against the glass, you'll buy a windshield instead of a wiper.
The washer fluid reservoirs were half full of summer fluid, which can freeze in the lines. I ran them nearly empty by using the washers on the drive to work for two days, then topped them up with the winter fluid.
Tire pressure drops about one pound for every 10 degrees the temperature falls. A tire set correctly in August at 85 degrees is low on a 25-degree morning. The correct pressure for each vehicle is on the sticker in the driver's door jamb, not the number on the tire sidewall, which is a maximum. I checked all eight tires cold, plus the van's spare, which was 12 pounds low.
I also put a winter bag in each vehicle with a blanket, gloves, a flashlight with batteries that work, a phone charging cable and a bag of kitty litter for traction. Garrett has his permit and will be practicing through the winter, so I added an index card with our agent's number and the shop's number to the van's glove box.
Deer season is starting too, which is its own post. For now, both vehicles have new blades, good coolant and full tires. One of them has a battery I'm keeping an eye on. We'll run it till it tells us otherwise.